Marching Towards Civil War

I've grown numb to much of the news coming from Iraq, but today's events documented in the NY Times left me shocked--shocked at the rapidity of the deterioration there, at the brutal sectarianism, and at the gap between our perception of Iraq its horrifying reality. There were three distinct but interconnected events in the article that warrant discussion.

First, the attack on American forces:

In a coordinated assault on an American combat outpost north of Baghdad, suicide bombers drove three cars filled with explosives into the base today, killing two American soldiers and wounding at least 17 more, witnesses and the American military said.

The brazen and highly unusual attack, which was followed by fierce gun battles and a daring evacuation of the wounded Americans by helicopters, came on a day of violence across the country that left more than 40 people dead in shootings, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and roadside explosions.

Far from placing the roadside bombs or picking off American soldiers at night, the 'insurgents' have now graduated to plotting full-scale sieges of American Military bases. All caveats against Vietnam comparisons put aside, the insurgency we're engaged with now in Iraq is now closer to the Vietcong in terms of organization and sophistication than the picture painted to us by the Bush Administration for so many months.

The second notable piece of information in the article deals with the ongoing Balkanization of Iraq:

There is already evidence that Shiite militia leaders are either heading to strongholds in the south and, the officers said, Sunni militants are likely to adopt a similar strategy.

Military commanders believe that insurgents are congregating in ethnic strongholds across the country. But why? Because they believe that the dissipation of Iraq is occurring--not later, but now--and they are preparing for partition, much in the same way that the Indian Subcontinent saw mass migrations (some forced, some not) prior to the creation of independent India and Pakistan.

Finally, and perhaps most horrifying, is the description of mass execution of an entire family, a family plausibly fleeing towards safety:

A family of 13 was slaughtered on the road to Falluja, about 12 miles northwest of Baghdad, because they were from a tribe known to oppose the actions of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, according to witnesses. The family, including an elderly woman and two small boys, was dragged out of an Akia minibus, lined up in the middle of the road and shot. The executions took place in full view of others on the road, where traffic was stopped, witnesses said.

The entire family was slaughtered simply because they came from a tribe that opposed Al Qaeda. They were killed in the middle of the highways. Their murderers stopped traffic so hundreds of people could watch them slaughter an entire family, including woman, children, and the elderly.

I am terrified for the innocent people in Iraq--of which there are too many to estimate--but while our presence there causes unnecessary death and suffering, there is such hatred, hatred that runs so deep, that our staying or leaving will do nothing to preclude the Tigris and Euphrates from turning red.

We should leave as soon as possible, before we compound the inevitable and unfolding atrocities of tomorrow.

Islamic Nationalism and the War on Terror

As with any rhetorical program whose ambiguity is its greatest asset, the "War On Terror" has managed to an create an imaginary homogeneous enemy through generalization (at least unto very recently, it appears that most members of Congress, let alone the general public, knew of the difference sects within Islam and the all-too-important history between them). Thus a monocultural 'Islamist' was created, as well as a worldwide Islamic community seeking to destroy our many freedoms, freedoms which are, for the most part, equally as ideological as the ones espoused by Islamism.

But then something happened: the rhetoric employed by the U.S. had the opposite of its intended effect. It served as a point of cohesion for Muslims worldwide, turning reification into reality.

Well, sort of. It wasn't a total reification. After all, a 'totalizing' concept does exist in Islam: that of the Umma, or worldwide Islamic community. But that concept's salience depends on how much national, political, economic, ethnic, and sectarian differences are emphasized at the expense of a categorical, undifferentiated Islam. as is clear from the examples of Iraq and Lebanon, the Umma is still an elusive concept. But it an idea that has nevertheless gained some currency recently:

Umma nationalism seems to be, currently, a dominant mode of thought for many Muslims, in the west as well as the Muslim world. It conceives the political world as one of confrontation between Muslims on the one side and hostile Christians, Jews and Hindus on the other. It is a variant of the "clash of civilizations". It is a totalising vision which eliminates actual politics. The complexities of Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine/Israel, of the ethnic politics of Europe, of the struggles of Chechnya, all these are collapsed to a single dimension of religious/communal confrontation.

It faces the equally total and simplistic notion of the "war on terror". This discourse of umma nationalism seems to be widely held, not only by committed ideological or religious Muslims, but also casually by many nominal Muslims.

The great majority of Muslims probably holds these notions lightly and certainly doesn't act upon them, socially or politically. Would this, then, confirm the distinction between religion and ideology? It would in that many of those who partake of this ideology, whether casually or earnestly, may not be religiously observant. But few who are observant would eschew it.

Islamic religiosity, under current conditions, almost invariably entails an ideological vision. [my italics]

As Sami Zubaida notes, this tendency is a variant of Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' thesis, so in vogue in Neo/Conservative circles. I would only add, in addition to the conclusion that contemporary Islam necessary implies an ideology, that so does contemporary American Democracy--our State Religion--as interpreted by the Bush Administration. Thus these ideological perversions feed off one another, both annihilating moderation and rationality according to their own delusions, creating a conflagration that, by way off its own hunger, asphyxiates the rest of the world.

Mercenaries For Jesus

Apparently, Pat Robertson can out-huckster the best of 'em, and then threaten to ice your family:

A Texas bodybuilder suing Pat Robertson contends the religious broadcaster walked into federal court for a legal proceeding and told him: “I am going to kill you and your family.”

That's cold, Pat. Why would you say such a thing?

Busch is suing Robertson for what he says is misappropriation of his image to promote Robertson’s protein diet shake.

Robertson has been touting his “age-defying” weight-loss shake for five years on his Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network talk show “The 700 Club,” offering the recipe free to any viewer who requested it.

Busch contacted the show in 2005, saying he had slimmed down from 400 to 200 pounds by drinking the shake. CBN showed his before-and-after photos 20 times in a promotional spot and flew Busch to Virginia Beach for a live TV interview with Robertson.

Busch says he didn’t know when he contacted CBN that Robertson recently had licensed his shake for commercial distribution by a nationwide health-food chain. He sued Robertson in September 2005, alleging that the broadcaster used his image for a commercial purpose without compensating him.

Oh, that 's why: you used someone's image illegally in order to push your silly little diet shake.

Apparently, in addition to offering a diet regime, CBN will also smite your enemies for you.

You can read the full story here.

The "War On Terrorism" Tax: Institutionalizing a Lie

Sen. Joe Lieberman has proposed that new tax be created to fund the "War on Terrorism":

Washington - An outspoken supporter of the Iraq war on Tuesday called for a new tax to pay for its astronomical cost as Congress opened a debate on President George W. Bush's $2.9 trillion budget plan for next year.Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut proposed a "war on terrorism tax" at a Senate hearing during which he said the Pentagon's $622 billion defense budget proposal for fiscal 2008 threatened to crowd out funds for domestic programs. (...) "I think we have to start thinking about a war on terrorism tax," Lieberman said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Bush's defense budget. "I mean, people keep saying we're not asking a sacrifice of anybody but our military in this war and some civilians who are working on it."

Lieberman did not provide details of his tax idea.

Let's take this very opportune moment to simply step back and ask ourselves: Is there such a thing as a "War on Terrorism"? Can wars against a tactic, a method, be fought?

I, for one, would argue no. The "War on Terrorism" is a farce, an ideological ploy, an apparition to be swatted at in lieu of Soviets. Now, before I'm dismissed as 'radical', (and therefore categorically discredited--for Chomsky is correct in saying that the 'space' of discourse in the U.S. unbelievably constricted) consider this:

(1). There is a very real threat by Islamist terrorists. These organizations are the co-production of their own domestic social/cultural/political environments, military-industrial involvement from the West, and the lingering wounds of European Imperalism. No one is blameless. Yet instead of taking a positive, but culturally self-conscious role in ameliorating the problems in the Islamic world, we have exacerbated the problem infinitely in Iraq, Israel, and Saudi Arabia (we should have never kept American soldiers in the land of Mecca and Medina).

(2). These threats are interconnected, but separate, and many times local. Islamism--the political ideology that is (are) Islamism(s)--manifests itself quite differently all over the Muslim world. Hezbollah does not equal Hamas does not equal Al Qaeda. This is quite obvious to the informed, but not so to most, as our own government has perpetrated a campaign to construct an Enemy, and make that enemy a monolith.

(3.) Al Qaeda is a serious threat to the American Republic. We know this. We knew it before 9/11. Why wasn't the response to 9/11 simply framed in these terms?

Because the Bush Administration knew that to maximize its control over the Republic, it had to frame the attacks in large-scale ideological terms, to constrict real debate in America. The American government has been doing this since the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. Or perhaps you could ask the Rosenbergs, or Sacco and Vanzetti. Conservatives knew what a boon a shapeless, ineffable enemy could to remaking the country according to their design. So they choose themselves over the long-term health of the Republic.

But Democrats joined them in endlessly parroting the term 'War on Terror". And that parroting continues today. Shame on most of them for not having the courage--for I know many have the intellectual capacity--to challenge the term prima facie. There is no "War on Terror", and I anxiously await an elected officials admission of this.

This brings us back to Senator Lieberman's proposition for a "War on Terrorism Tax".
Taxes represent a basic component of any system of government; taxes can thus be equated with fundamental, and systemic, legitimization of whatever is being taxed. It would be to sear the "War on Terror" into the very fabric of the Republic, to turn a specious ideological device into a basic plank of the of the political system. It would be to systematize, in Gore Vidal's words, "perpetual war for perpetual peace."

No, Senator Lieberman, I not only reject your tax, but the very intangible ideological device you believe worthy of a tax. The "War on Terror" would be rotten to its very core, but it has none, for that would implicitly assume it actually exists.

Dinesh D'Souza's Heinous Thoughts

Dinesh D'Souza has released a new book entitled "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and its Responsibility for 9/11." Yes, apparently it is the "cultural left" that created Islamist terrorism, not, for instance (1) dominant notions of Realpolitick wherein, say, Afghani Mujahadeen are armed and trained by President Reagan and the C.I.A. to resist the Soviets, or (2) European Imperialism that cut up the region in an often arbitrary, if not sometimes insidious fashion.

No, the Left caused 9/11. From Michiko Kakutani's evisceration of D'Souza in the NY Times:

Mr. D’Souza’s central thesis is an absurd one, constructed around two clashing arguments: 1) that the American left is allied to the Islamic radical movement to undermine the Bush White House and American foreign policy; and 2) that “the left is the primary reason for Islamic anti-Americanism as well as the anti-Americanism of other traditional cultures around the world” because “liberals defend and promote values that are controversial in America and deeply revolting to people in traditional societies, especially in the Muslim world.”

Indeed, the "Cultural Left's" beliefs of the universality of human rights, gender equality, etc., are what caused 9/11, because we project these beliefs upon others in, say, the marketplace of Ideas, instead of the through the barrel of a gun. Another gem from Kakutani:

To flesh out his theories, Mr. D’Souza tosses out lots of assertions based on false information, partial truths and unrepresentative anecdotes. For instance, he repeatedly asserts that Osama bin Laden hates America because “the cultural left has fostered a decadent American culture,” not because of United States foreign policy. He says Muslims couldn’t possibly have seen a threat to Islam in the presence of United States troops in Saudi Arabia, because the American base there “is more than five hundred miles from Islam’s holy sites”; nor could they be driven to suicide attacks by the Israeli-Palestinian situation because Israel is but “a small irritant within the vast expanse of Islamic territory.”

Talk about a state of denial. D'Souza is so blinded by ideology that he would rather blame the American Left for 9/11 than admit that an imperialist foreign policy is what largely contributed to it (but was not the sole cause) in the first place. Thus our championing of human rights causes ire in the Islamic world, not Israel/Palestine, or Abu Ghraib. Oh, and speaking of Abu Ghraib:

He writes that American prisons at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib “are comparable to the accommodations in midlevel Middle Eastern hotels” in terms of cleanliness, food and amenities, and argues that abuse at Abu Ghraib did not reflect a disregard for human rights, but rather “the sexual immodesty of liberal America.” (“Lynndie England and Charles Graner were two wretched individuals from red America who were trying to act out the fantasies of blue America.”)

It makes one wonder who's really acting out their fantasies. Oh, and as an aside--D'Souza is a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Conservative scholarship should be proud.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Implodes

O.K., I'm enjoying the greater transparency in Government since the Democrats took over. But I'm already a little nostalgic for that Republican 'Red Wall of Silence', or at least hoped we could emulate them just a little bit in that matter. Witness this one:

Rep. Loretta Sanchez has quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, accusing the chairman, Rep. Joe Baca, of telling people she's a "whore."

Baca denied the charge.

In an interview with The Politico Wednesday, Sanchez, a California Democrat as is Baca, also cited concerns about whether Baca was properly elected Hispanic Caucus chairman in November and about his general attitude toward female lawmakers. The caucus represents 21 Hispanic Democrats in Congress.

"I'm not going to be a part of the CHC as long as Mr. Baca illegally holds the chair … I told them no. There's a big rift here," Sanchez said. "You treat the women like shit. I have no use for him."

Perhaps the Congressional Hispanic Caucus should get a new chairman. You can read the full story here.

Oh, and apparently its not an isolated case. Rep. Baca should really step down, or perhaps receive a healthy helping of verbal abuse from his mother.